


symmetry in shadows i can’t hide (i just want to be right by your side)

by Skeliae Verat (Verat)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bucky has issues, Bucky thinks he's getting insane, Drinking, JUST, M/M, Not Beta Read, Romance, Sorry Not Sorry, Spirits, This is awkward, and Steve isn't really dead, but I enjoyed writing, but this keeps being a little freakish, it wasn't supposed to be sad, last chapter is going to be fluff, so i should probably stop crying, this makes no sense at all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-09
Updated: 2014-07-02
Packaged: 2018-02-04 01:56:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1762351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verat/pseuds/Skeliae%20Verat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky doesn’t know what happened for him to wake up. For a brief second he thinks about just turn and back to sleep but he knows he’s not a light sleeper and that there aren’t a lot of things that can wake him when he’s so tired. Then when he opens his eyes there’s this guy at the side of his bed staring at him.</p><p>Or: when Bucky is haunted by the ghost of a guy named Steve Rogers and keeps telling himself that he’s not falling in love for a dead man (and Steve keeps telling him that he’s not dead).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I was never good enough to find

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Say You’ll Haunt Me, by Stone Sour. I regret nothing.  
> (and I keep skipping scenes)  
> (I should probably stop but I can't)  
> (help)

“I told you it was wrong.”

“Shut up. You’re dead. You don’t know anything.”

“I already told you I’m not dead! Shit, can’t you stop saying it?”

“Shut. Up.”

“No. I’m always here. I told you it wasn’t going to work but you didn’t hear me, did you? And now you want to make me feel like it’s my fault because‒”

“Shut up!”

In the other side of the room Bucky’s workmate jumps in her seat. She looks at him, wide eyes, and Bucky smiles softly, telling her a “I’m sorry” before sending a deadly serious glance to the guy at his side.

“Shut up.”, he whispers again, and backs to typing.

A few months ago if someone said this was going to be his life he would probably laugh at their faces. At the start he was a bit cynic, but one of two: or he’s going insane or this thing that calls itself Steve is telling the truth. And trust him, it’s very difficult being cynic when there’s a‒ a fucking ghost haunting him! Bucky could always pretend he wasn’t there, but then Steve would get bored and start to mess with Bucky’s life (not that he didn’t do it already when he was receiving attention).

It also means that he’s probably going to have to ask the guy forgiveness later but right now he can’t give a shit.

 

____________________

 

It’s eight o’clock and Bucky hasn’t seen Steve all day after that little accident in his work (and that was at seven in the morning). He doesn’t know if this means that the guy finally stopped haunting him or what, but he still searches for him.

“C’mon Steve. You know I didn’t do it on purpose. It’s not my fault that you’re annoying in most of the time”, Bucky looks around him, but there’s no sign of the blonde. “You’re not going to make me ask for it, are you?... Yeah, you are.” he sighs. “Please, Steve. I’m sorry. I really am.” Still no sign from the guy. Bucky shuts his eyes. “Okay”.

Okay. Really. Okay. Fuck it. He’s going to do something else. It’s not like he needs Steve anyway.

 

____________________

 

It’s eleven o’clock and Bucky is more drunk than he probably should. His head hurts. He doesn’t know if he still has any money in his pocket but he keeps asking for one more shot. And while he drinks, the alcohol burning his throat, he thinks about his life.

He grew up as a normal kid from Brooklyn. A bit of fights here, some bruises there. His father had died before he was born and his mother worked her whole life to give him a decent life. He hadn’t much friends but he wasn’t all alone either. He had good grades and was good in PE and his life was good. It really was. Even when his mother died. Even when he moved to another city and left every person he knew behind.

Even when he woke up one night to find Steve Rogers’s ghost in his house.

  


_Bucky doesn’t know what happened for him to wake up. For a brief second he thinks about just turn and back to sleep but he knows he’s not a light sleeper and that there aren’t a lot of things that can wake him when he’s so tired. However when he opens his eyes there’s this guy at the side of his bed staring at him._

  


Bucky laughs with the memory.

It’s not his fault that Steve is a fucking creepy. It’s not his fault that he threw his pillow at him and threatened to call the police. It’s not his fault when he didn’t believe it was really happening. You don’t wake up everyday to find a fucking ghost watching you as you sleep, right? Still, Bucky wasted a lot of time to notice that Steve wasn’t going away. There were days when the blonde wouldn’t show up for a whole day and he was going to believe it really had been just a thing from his mind. But then before he gone to sleep he would find Steve somewhere in the house and realize that no, the hallucination hadn’t stopped.

And right now it doesn’t feel like a hallucination.

 

____________________

 

Bucky thinks about Steve. He thinks about his golden hair and his baby blue eyes and about how much his skin seems soft (but he will never know, will he?). He thinks about Steve’s red lips and his hands and his eye roll. Then, he wishes that his heart could stop aching and his eyes could stop burning because _he’s so fucked. So, so fucked..._

 

____________________

 

It’s almost four in the morning and the whole world is spinning. Bucky sits in the pavement and resists the urge to throw up everything that is in his stomach. He doesn’t want to go home. He doesn’t want to feel anything anymore. He wants just to stay here forever.

But of course he isn’t this lucky.

“Bucky.”

He frowns.

“Go away, Steve.” _I don’t want you here. I don’t want to feel this way. I **don’t**_.

“You’re going to get sick. It’s almost four in the morning. You need to sleep.”

“No. _Go away_.”

“Bucky, stop acting childishly. Let’s go home.”

Bucky sighs.

“What’s the point?”

“... What?” Steve sounds confused.

“What’s the point, Steve? You’re not even here. You’re not even _real_.”

“I _am_ real, Bucky. Why don’t you see it? Why don’t you believe me?”

“ _Because I’m alone!_ That’s the goddamnit reason! I’m a fucking lonely and I ever gonna be. You’re just… Just… It’s just my mind playing me tricks because I’m fucked up, right?”

Steve stares at him and Bucky hides his head in his hands.

“Do you really want me to go away?” Steve asks quietly.

“What?” Bucky rises his head to look the guy.

“Do you want me to go away? I mean… For real?”

Bucky doesn’t even think about.

“No.”

Steve blinks surprised.

“But then… What do you want from me?”

“I don’t know”, Bucky sighs. “I wish I did.”

Steve keeps silent. Bucky doesn’t want to think about the fact that he’s completely insane. He doesn’t want to think about anything now. He closes his eyes and waits for infinite seconds.

“Steve. Why do you keep saying you’re not dead?”

The blonde sits at his side. There’s no warmth in him. His body is like fucking smoke.

“I… I just feel it, right? I mean, I’m a bit lost. I’m still working on this ‘just you can see me’ thing and I’m still trying to figure out why I’m here. I know I’m not dead. Don’t ask me _how_ I know, I just know.”

Bucky’s heart skips a beat.

“Does this mean that one day you can‒ I don’t know, just‒ back to your body?”, he sniffs. God, he feels like a weirdo talking about this.

Steve thinks about the question.

“I don’t know… I think that whatever had happened to me when I was in my body… It doesn’t matter now. Maybe one day I can back. Maybe not.”

“Then until there you’re stuck with me.”

“Until there I’m stuck with you”, Steve agrees.

“You seem pretty calm with this… I mean, with all of this”, Bucky points and he receives a shrug.

“Well, you may not be the funniest company in the world but I like you. In a creepy kind of way.”

Bucky smirks.

“....”

“Steve?”

“Huh?”

“You probably can’t feel it because you don’t exactly have a body right now but it’s fucking freezing here. Do you wanna come home?”

 

____________________

  
They walk — or float or whatever is the means of locomotion of a spirit — all the way home. Bucky knows that things aren’t good and that maybe they’ll never be but when Steve’s spirit hand trespass his (like if they were actually holding hands) he allows himself to hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was thinking about making a few more chapters but I'm not sure yet.


	2. Little time has come and gone so far

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title (of the chapters included) from Say You'll Haunt Me, by Stone Sour.  
> I think they ended seeming a bit like each other? Oh, well.

Steve can’t remember how it’s being alive. He can’t remember how it is to feel the sun on his skin or the warmth of a hug. He feels like he should know all of this but his mind refuses to allow him to. He had friends? Family? How old he were? It’s like this new “life”, blank and confusing, is all he can ever have. After all, it’s the only thing he can remember. He had woke up to darkness and cold, all alone and so scared. He remembers feeling scared. And it turned into despair. Why he couldn’t see? Why he was alone? _Why that was happening to him_? He remembers that he felt like screaming.

And then...

Then he remembers Bucky — stupid, lovely Bucky, with sad eyes and harsh words. In the beginning the other man wouldn’t see him and Steve would follow him through the day, learning about who he was and what he done. Knowing him. But came the night when Steve was just doing the same thing he always did and Bucky first saw him.

Steve smiles softly. It was funny and a bit of weird. What people do when they find a stranger watching them as they sleep? Scream? Rise and run? Faint? _Bucky threw a pillow in him and threatened to call the police_. He didn’t even got out of bed! He stayed there, just half-awake, adorable with his messy hair and sleepy face.

If start laughing wasn’t going to wake Bucky, Steve probably would be doing it now. It’s strange how they became this fucked up thing. I mean… That’s not how it’s supposed to work, right? He knows he’s alive, he feels it (like a tight string that holds his beating heart), and it means he shouldn’t be here. It means his soul — is this the right word for what he is right now? — shouldn’t be anywhere far his body.

Still, here he is, watching Bucky lurching and snoring softly in his sleep. Thinking about what they are and what they mean to each other. It’s not like he has been keeping an eye on time but he’s sure that must have been at least a month since they started to interact. He never stopped to really ask what Bucky thought about the whole situation but right now he knows it’s not quite like he thought it were (and God bless drunk confessions because Steve doesn't think that Bucky would tell him anything if he was sober). Bucky likes him. He really likes Steve being near. And Steve wasn’t lying when he said he likes Bucky too. Bucky makes him think about who he was, who he used to be. And, sometimes, Steve even catch glimpses of his life as a living, pieces of past things and the sound of the wind on his ears. Glimpses of bright brown eyes and a soft smile. Someone calling him with a sweet voice (like the kind of voice he once heard a mother talking to her daughter). Bucky makes him feel alive and how could that be any more creepy?

Steve sighs, tired. He knows he should want go home, wherever home is, and back to the things he had but how can he miss something he doesn't remind? He doesn't miss anything. He feels like home with Bucky and if he has the chance to choose he doesn’t intend to go away anytime soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick question, lovely readers: do you want me to make this a, idk let’s guess, five chapters fic? Because I do have something in my mind c: it probably needs a bit more planning but I think maybe I could do it?


	3. say you want to stay you want me too (say you’ll never die, you’ll always haunt me)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel that there’s some kind of tag I should put here (not just in the chapter, in the whole story) but right now I can’t remember what tag it is. (Help?) Anyway, I hope you like it c:  
> (warning for the author writing a lot of nonsense in the end notes)

They don’t talk about it. From what Bucky knows they could even pretend it had never happened.

But they _don’t_. Okay, it’s not like they suddenly became best friends and all, but still. Bucky tries not to be so harsh and Steve tries not to be so annoying. Bucky finds out that it’s way easier to work if he actually hear what Steve has to say than ignoring him and being angry. And maybe, just maybe, he can understand the guy — not being able to talk with anyone but him must sucks.

 

Steve, on other hand, thinks they fit together perfectly. Yeah, Bucky has some serious issues but who doesn’t have? It’s not like Steve himself doesn’t have his, they just deal with it in different kind of ways. They can work on it. They _will_ work on it.

Everything’s going to be fine.

 

____________________

 

It’s a lazy Saturday morning and Bucky’s lying on the couch, skipping channels without really paying attention to the TV screen. Steve is bored because, well, he’s always bored.

“Bucky”, he calls.

“Yeah?”

“Why don’t you go out?”

“Because I’m watching TV?”

“You’re not watching TV, you’re pretending you’re watching TV. I’m bored. You’re bored. Why can’t we go out?”

“As far as I’m concerned you don’t need me to go out”, Bucky stares at him but his words are not harsh. He just sounds curious.

Steve presses his lips. It’s true. And his answer is stupid.

“Ain’t funny. I mean, what’s the point if I’m going alone? No one can see me, no one but you. It means that I just have you to talk to and I don’t intend to pass the rest of my life in silence, thank you very much. Also, I really think you need to take some sun. You’re pale.”

Bucky rolls his eyes. Did that guy even looked at himself in the mirror? Gross.

“I’m not pale, I just don’t like hanging out or taking _any_ sun. Plus, what do you mean by pass the rest of your life in silence? If we do go out, and I don’t intend to, it will seem that I’m talking with myself.”

Steve shrugs.

They back to silence.

 

____________________

 

Next Saturday they go to the movie theater. Neither of them talk about it.

 

____________________

 

Slowly they start to bring closer to each other. Bucky probably won’t admit it and Steve isn’t worried so they just… Let it be.

Bucky’s too far gone to care about how he has attached himself to the guy. He can’t help it but he’s not saying it. Inevitably Steve will go away or will want to go away and Bucky won’t complain about it or tell him not to. He can’t keep with this forever, right? If Steve is right and he does have a‒

“Steve.”

“Hum?”, Steve looks at him from his usual corner at the bedroom.

“What you said about your body that night… Does that mean that you’re… Lost?” Bucky makes an effort not to stare. He shouldn’t be talking about that day, should he? “I mean, you said that you don’t know what happened to your body. More or less. If you don’t know what happened‒”, he stops himself. God, this is difficult. “Why can’t you back to yourself right now?”

The blonde lift a brow. Bucky waits patiently for the answer.

“I don’t know”, Steve finally sighs. “I mean, I have this feeling… Like there’s something holding me. Like a string. Like a chain. I can’t feel anything the way I am right now, but I do feel a heart beating. If it’s not mine, then whose is? I just don’t know if”, Steve hesitates. “... I don’t know how to go back to it.”

Bucky wants to ask how Steve’s life was. He wants to know what he liked to do, in what he worked, how were his friends.

He’s dragged from his thoughts when Steve starts talking again.

“It’s weird but… Do you believe that I can’t remember how it is?”, under Bucky’s confused glare, the blonde smiles. “Being alive. I can’t remember how it used to be _before_. Sometimes I get glimpses of it. Soft words. Smiles. Things I’m sure that were supposed to mean something to me but right now just seem blurred. Even scary.”

Bucky doesn’t want to be rude but the question comes out anyway.

“Are you afraid of backing to your life?”

There’s a second of silence.

“ _I don’t remember how my life was, Bucky_. This is all I have now. How would you feel if you were lost and confused and even when you know you probably shouldn’t be where you are you can’t bring yourself to go because it’s the only thing you can hold on to?” Steve sounds annoyed and Bucky looks away.

“Okay”, he replies quietly, putting the blanket closer to his face and shrinking in the bed. “I won’t ask anymore. Sorry.”

 

Steve remains silent for more time than he likes. He looks at Bucky, lying still in the bed, and feels bad. Maybe he wasn’t provoking. Maybe Steve had been just angry at nothing.

“Bucky... What would you do if I tried to go?”

The brunet almost falls of the bed, turning to look at him with wide eyes.

“… Wait. You mean‒ like… Right now?”

“Yeah.”

“But you said you don’t know how to back”, Bucky’s voice is barely audible.

“You don’t want me to go?”

Steve doesn’t want to hold any hope. Maybe they aren’t as good as he thought.

“It’s not what I said”, Bucky sounds offended. “You can go whenever you want. _It’s not like I’m holding you here_.”

Ouch.

“I don’t understand. _Why are you mad at me?_ What did I do this time? Because as long as I know we have been getting perfectly good until now.”

“Why are _you_ mad at me? You started it! I was just curious, it’s not my fault if you can’t bear a simple question!”

They look at each other, and Bucky frowns.

“You thought I was doing it just to make you angry, didn’t you?”

If Steve had a body he would be blushing.

“I‒ kind of‒ yeah”, he sighs. “Sorry, ok? I didn’t mean to.”

Bucky rubs his face.

“Look. I’m tired. You’re tired. It’s late and I want to sleep. We can talk about this tomorrow, right? Or never talk about it at all. I don’t mind.”

Steve nods.

 

____________________

 

He doesn’t expect Bucky to talk about it again. It’s how things work with him, right? He says things and acts like it had never happened.

Despite his thoughts, Bucky talks about it anyway.

“What you said last night. Does that mean that you don’t know who you ar‒ were?”

Steve reflects about the question. It’s not like answering is going to harm somebody, is it?

“More or less.”

Bucky stares at him. “You really don’t remember your life, do you?” his voice is soft now.

Steve doesn’t answer. Bucky doesn’t talk about it again.

 

____________________

 

Maybe it’s because he has nobody but the guy. Maybe it’s because he’s too accustomed to Bucky to really care. Whatever it is, Steve can’t stop himself from noticing him. Dark hair in contrast with a somewhat pale skin. Pink tulip-shaped lips and blue roundish-almond eyes. Sometimes, while looking, Steve will even feel like his heart is beating a bit harder.

Still, he just comes to the realization when, one night, he manages to make Bucky laugh. Because Bucky has a lovely, lovely smile and maybe _Steve is falling for him_.

 

____________________

 

One day, Bucky wakes up at night. Steve watches him go to the kitchen and silently follows him.

“Bucky.” he whispers.

“Wait a minute.”, Bucky, still a bit numb, and fills a glass with water.

“Bucky.” Steve calls again, and he knows he sound a bit desperate. When Bucky holds his hand in a sign for him to wait, he blurts out: “I think that I’m in love with you.”

Bucky chokes on his water.

“You what?!” the brunet looks at him, coughing. “You can’t just say that to people!”

Steve looks at him sadly.

“I think I’m in love with you”, he says again.

Bucky’s shoulders fall.

“You’re not kidding me, right?”, Bucky stares at Steve’s face, searching for any sign of a smirk. There’s none. “Because if you are, Steve Rogers, I swear that I’ll‒”

“I’m not. I mean, I know this is madness and that I’m a creepy and that I don’t have a body. I know that we’re fucked up but I’m in love with you and I can’t even start to think about what it means because I don’t remember how I used to be and maybe I was a dick but maybe I was a good guy and maybe I had someone and _I can’t feel guilty about it_. I look at you and I wish I had my body back just to hug you and kiss you and _hold your hand every fucking second_ and it hurts to know that right now I can’t do this. Maybe you doesn’t even want me to do this.”

“This will never work, Steve”, Bucky says quietly, and Steve’s face falls. “You _know_ me. I’m a completely mess.”

“ _I don’t care_. Don’t you understand? I don’t care if you’re a mess, Bucky. You’re so much better than you give yourself credit...”

“Better in what?” Bucky cuts him, sharp. “Better in fucking things up? I know this story, Steve, I know how it will end. And I don’t wanna hurt you. There’s not even point in lying about it. Sometimes I look at you and… Just, you have this… I’m not good with words but‒”, he sighs. “Why me? From all people in the world, why’d you had to know me? If I were a decent person I would tell you that you should try to back to whatever you had before. I would had told you a long ago. But I’m not a good person, Steve. _I’m a selfish prick and I don’t deserve you but I want you here with me_. By my side, not anyone else’s.”

“Does this mean that you…?”, Steve looks at him hopefully and Bucky doesn’t have the guts to lie.

“It means that I… That maybe I’m… Yeah.”, he sighs.

How can he say it? Talk aloud will just make it real, and when it ends (because it will end someday) it’s just going to hurt him.

“It means that I’m in love with you too.”

  
  


Later, Steve doesn’t go to the room. For the look in Bucky’s face he know that the brunet will pass the whole night thinking about what they just said (he knows because he will do it too).

 

____________________

 

“We’re good?”, Steve asks him next morning.

Bucky looks at those blue, blue eyes, and smiles softly.

“Yeah. Yeah, we’re good.”

 

____________________

 

They don’t sit and talk about how they will make it work. They just do it. It’s freakish, of course, because it’s not like they could kiss or hug or even hold hands like normal couples do but none of them care too much about it provided they’re together.

It’s ok. Of course it’s ok (it’s ok until the night Steve has to come back to his body).

 

____________________

 

_Warm hands knotting his hair. Strong arms closing around him. Soft lips kissing his bare shoulders._

“Bucky. Wake up.”

_He doesn’t want it to stop. He presses his head against the body behind him and shuts his eyes._

“Bucky.”

_Please. Just this time. Let him make it real._

“Bucky!”

He wakes up.

“I don’t want to go away”, Steve blurts to his face and it’s the first time Bucky sees him looking desperate. “I don’t want to leave you.”

Bucky blinks, trying to understand what’s happening. He focuses on Steve, lovely, afraid Steve, who’s kneeling at his side and blurred like if Bucky was seeing him through a tarnished glass.

He gets it faster than he would like (and he never hated so much the fact that he can’t hug Steve right now).

“You’re not, Steve. You don’t need to go anywhere if you don’t want to.”, he sits straight.

“But I can’t stop it! I’m… I feel like I’m slipping from you. Like if I was falling through your fingers”, Steve sighs and hides his face with his hands.

“It’s…”, Bucky hesitates. “Whatever had happened you have to go back, isn’t it? Or‒”, he won’t say it. He inhales deeply.

_He can’t have a breakdown right now._

They can do this, is what he says to himself. They can.

“If you don't have anyone waiting for you... Will you look for me when you go back to your life?”

Steve rises his head to look at him. He opens his mouth and whispers like if he’s telling a secret: “I will.”

“You promise?” Bucky bites his lips. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.

“Cross my heart.”

They do not smile. Bucky stretches his hand as if he could touch Steve’s fingers. They look at each other briefly. Bucky feels his heart hammering in his chest and the tears threatening to fall.

And in the moment he looks away, in a hospital somewhere at Brooklyn, Steven Grant Rogers opens his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So… Just to explain… I suppose you’ll know what is a out-of-body experience xD but just in case if you don’t know: it’s like if your soul “left” your body ([the page on Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_body_experience)). Technically it’s not death. Of course I changed some things. When a person has a nearly-death experience some of them say that they could see themselves dying before they “revived”. I have been watching Bleach and Yu Yu Hakusho again when the idea came: what if people in comatose can’t back because their souls can’t find their bodies? Maybe as a self-defense of the body, like to protect itself because of the trauma? And sometimes they souls get confused and it actually holds them as spirits because if they don’t know who they were or where their bodies are, how are they coming back? Sometimes they will back to their bodies naturally, without having to remember anything (because their bodies are healed and their souls weren’t damaged). Sometimes they won’t come back even if their bodies heal.  
> It may sound like madness. I mean, I know it sounds like madness. But a few years ago I had an uncle who were in comatose and it didn’t mattered that nobody knew why he wasn’t waking up. I don’t know. It’s kind of a comfort to me to think about things that we will never know for sure.  
> But it’s okay. I will stop talking about sad things. Let’s talk about the fact that I found out that I can’t write things like this. The romance makes me paranoid because I keep changing from “oooh they’re cute!” to “oh my god what I’m doing”. I’m a disaster. (aand, if any of you have any advice to me about improving my write, I would love to hear! :D)


	4. Little variations on my page (I can see the patterns on your face)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a lot less emotional than I first planned. And I'm pretty sure there must be something medical-wrong-written but my brain can't tell me where it is. Oh, well. I hope you like it. And sorry for lingering too much to post this. The last chapter (that is actually just fluff and love and nothing hurts, I swear, even though it is way too short) is going to be updated in... Eight hours, more or less? (or in half-an-hour, if my mind agree to collaborate with me and my fingers stop hurting)

Steve wakes up to an aching pain, a white ceiling and the smell of alcohol. He breathes and his head hurts, he tries to move but his body doesn’t want to, he looks around just as much as he can and his vision is blurred. Everything’s quiet and scary until a sudden voice breaks the silence.

“Steve? Buddy?”

He blinks and tries to answer but his throat is dry and‒

“He’s awake!”, he hears a man scream in the hallway, but he blacks out before the nurse can come in.

____________________

When he opens his eyes again, the room is empty. He waits, but no one comes — no one comes for a long, long time.

____________________

Steve feels like a doll. He hears, silently, as the doctor talk to him and people come and go and exams proceed. He looks at his friends — a beautiful girl named Peggy and a strong-handed guy called Sam —, at the persons he know, and everything seems like a dream — like if this isn’t his real life.

“What happened?” he asks them, because _it’s_ _so confusing_.

“There was a girl and a guy trying to steal her handbag. You tried to play the hero, as you always do, but it didn’t end well. You’re lucky that‒ what’s her name?”

“Maria. Her name is Maria.” Peggy sounds like rolling her eyes to Sam.

“Right. Maria. You’re lucky that she didn’t panicked and quickly called an ambulance, or you probably would be dead now.”

“I don’t remember any of it…”, he really doesn’t. His memory is all blurry and dark.

“Basically, you got shot. Three times. In the chest. You almost didn’t survive, man. We freaked out when we knew. You lost a lot of blood and they had to put you in comatose.”

“How long?”

“Almost six months.”

Steve closes his eyes. He feels like he should remember something but he doesn’t know what it is.

____________________

Life slowly starts to make sense. He starts to recover and to talk more and he does all the things the doctor tells him to do.

And when the recovery is completed he comes home to an empty apartment and books of white pages where he’s sure that should be his life.

____________________

Sam visits him — a lot — and talk to him, and Steve really likes it because Sam makes him feel like he belongs. Like he hasn’t lost a lot of time in his life. And if wasn’t for him, well, maybe Steve wouldn’t ever remember.

____________________

“Who’s Benny?” it’s what Sam asks him that day. Suddenly. No reason, like a thought that comes too fast in your mind and your mouth says it before you can stop yourself.

“Who?”, Steve looks at him, curious.

“Benny. You kept calling this name when you started to wake.”

“... Benny?”, Steve frowns.

“Or something like that.”, Sam shrugs, and smiles. “Sorry. I just remembered it now. Probably it was a thing of my head.”

Yeah.

Probably.

That night, Steve dreams with a guy. He dreams with fights and a hopeless cause. He dreams about...

_“...You’re dead. You don’t know anything.”_

_“It’s fucking freezing here.”_

_“It means that I’m in love with you too.”_

It wasn’t Benny. It was Bucky.

Steve remembers Bucky. He remembers nights of smiles and jokes and talks. He remembers a stubborn brunet with sad eyes and a lot of self-loathe.

He remembers Bucky. And he remembers a promise.

_Oh, God_.

____________________

“You can’t do this!” is the first thing Peggy tells him, quickly followed by a: “Are you completely insane? You doesn’t even know this guy!”

The thing is, _Steve knows him_.

“Peggy, just… Listen to me. Just this time, okay? There’s no need to worry. I swear. Maybe it’s just a thing of my mind but maybe it’s not. I need see it myself… I need to know if he’s real. No one’s going to get hurt.”

“You are. I know you, Steve. Do you think Sam doesn’t see it, too? If this “Bucky Barnes” was just a thing of your head it’s going to break you. I... _We can’t lose you again_.”

Her voice is so soft, so hurt, so scared… Steve feels it like a punch.

“You’re not going to lose me, Peggy. None of you are going to lose me, I promise you.”

The girl sighs.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”¹

Steve looks away.

“I never do, Peggy. I never do”

____________________

Next day is Sam’s time, and he arrives as Steve packages his things for the trip.

“I’m going with you.” it’s the only thing he says, bag in hands, face serious.

And, really, what Steve could complain about it? His lips threaten to break a smile.

____________________

“This guy… Bucky?”

Steve nods, looking through the window.

“How do you know that he’s real? I mean… You said you met him but I’m sure that there weren’t a lot of strangers in your room when you were… You know. How could you’ve met him?”

Steve keeps silence, and his glance falls in Sam — Sam, who doesn’t have wide, wide eyes, and doesn’t even seem surprised.

“I don’t know. I guess I’m going to discover.”

____________________

The house seems scarier than Steve can remember but it’s probably his mind tricking him because of his anxiety. He knows that whatever that happens Sam will be waiting for the news when he backs to the hotel where they got a room.

Steve knocks in the door like he’s approaching Death itself — he feels like it is. There’s a minute of waiting and his heart races fast in his chest.

_Please. Please. He needs to be real, he needs to be real, he needs to_ ‒ the door opens.

He’s paler than Steve remembers, his eyes are far more tired and his hair is longer, but it’s him. It’s him.

“B‒Bucky?” Steve’s hands are trembling.

Bucky’s jaw falls. His lips move, like trying to form a word, but his voice doesn’t come out. He stares at Steve like the blonde is the sun.

And Steve, well, Steve would probably try to say something too — but Bucky throws his arms around his neck and presses his mouth against Steve’s like the world is going to end if he doesn’t. The kiss is almost a mess, lips and tongues and limbs, and Steve’s hands find their way to Bucky’s hips before both of them fall in the ground.

“You’re real.”, Bucky breathless whispers when they separate, arms still around his neck, holding him close.

Steve releases his breath, and it sounds dangerously with a sob.

“Yeah. I’m real.”

The next thing he knows is that Bucky’s fist meets his jaw.

“If you even _think_ about leaving me again I’m going to tie you to my bed and no one’s ever going to hear about Steve Rogers again.” it’s what the brunet hisses before leaning to kiss him again.

And — okay. Steve thinks he really can live with this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¹I'm pretty sure this comes from The Amazing Spiderman. The last scene?  
> Anyway.


	5. Together, together (we will stay together)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok. Eight more hours. I'm not good with time. Help.

**six years and a few days later...**

“And he had big, big blue eyes just like Pete’s.” Bucky finishes, smiling softly as the kids look at him. It’s the third time he tells them the story (or fourth, or fifth — he doesn’t know). He doesn’t really mind but it’s absolutely cute the fact that he can say it over and over again — with a few changes, of course, because they’re kids and they don’t need to hear about pain and fear and loneliness — and they’ll never get tired of it.

It’s not like he has some kind of problem with their story — his and Steve’s —, is just that he never imagined himself this way. Finding someone? It was the biggest “maybe” in his life, because although Bucky didn’t complain about the things he had, he had never thought he would truly be happy — or that anyone would ever want to form a family with him. Steve had proved him that he was wrong and, sincerely, Bucky had never been so happy. It wasn’t always easy, of course, but what kind of relationship is? They had their fights, and in some nights one of them would sleep in the couch or give the other the silence treatment. They would never pass much time angry with each other, though. And Sam, that soon became as a brother to Bucky, would always play the peacekeeper and matchmaker (“Yes, he still love you. No, I swear, he isn’t really angry. Talk to him.”)

“Does this mean your dad is just like Sleeping Beauty, Pete?” Wade Wilson has his big childish brown eyes wide with excitement.

From the kitchen, Steve and Sam can hear Bucky burst out laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soo, I always read about Peter (yes, Parker) being the Tony/Steve’s son and I really wanted to do Wade as Bucky/Steve’s adopted son (because I have a soft spot for Deadpool) but Wade doesn’t have blue eyes and it wouldn’t help me to write this end. I didn’t knew what I was going to do, I just knew I wanted something cute and fluff and that had nothing to do with angst. AND Sam appears quickly but I wanted to include him anyway. I don't know if there's a canon about this, but here both Steve and Bucky cook, like, awfully. Steve will forget or add things that have nothing to do with the recipe and Bucky will almost burn the whole house while trying to do something eatable. Sam is an amazing friend, so he will happily help them.  
> Anyway. I would like to thanks lovely Shinigami24 (who made me a comment in practically every chapter of the fic), Dragonkittin (who gave me idea of mentioning the Sleeping Beauty), liangmin, jcland, Mary, and everyone who gave me kudos! I hope you had liked it as much as I enjoyed writing :)


End file.
